Bloomberg, July 29, 2010
Former Tully's Coffee Japan Co. President Kota Matsuda, who was elected to parliament this month, said the country must cut corporate taxes to attract investment or risk losing out to Asian rivals.
"The Japanese government is not too friendly to companies, enterprises and entrepreneurs," said Matsuda, one of 10 members of the fledgling Your Party to win seats in the upper house of parliament. "The corporate tax is very high in Japan; it's over 40 percent. Many of my friends who own and manage public companies are considering moving out of Japan soon. That's a very big risk."
[...]
Matsuda said the business tax rate should first be cut to 25 percent and eventually 20 percent.
[...]
Matsuda, who grew up in Senegal and the U.S. before attending university in Japan, slept on the floor of the first Tully's in Tokyo's Ginza district for six months. When he took the company public in 2001, the stock doubled from the initial offer price to 320,000 yen. Ito En Ltd. in 2006 spent 4.8 billion yen ($54.7 million) to buy a controlling stake.
(Full Story)
Seems like a guy with an interesting and varied background. Probably means he'll get ignored by most of the government of course...
